The Sunday Recipe: Spiced Applesauce Oatmeal Muffins

October 17, 2021 at 6:00 am (Recipes, Uncategorized)
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The first time I made these, I went with the 400 degree oven, like I do for most muffins and baked for 22 minutes, but they scorched on the bottom. The crumb topping I was using, which was intended for apple crisp, was delicious, but sunk in a bit.

The second time I made them, I switched to the crumb topping that my Betty Crocker cook book gives for apple streusel muffins. I also turned the oven down to the 350 degrees that I used on the original cake recipe. The muffins without topping were great, the ones with it were good too, but the topping sunk in to make a filling.

Third try – 425 for 5 minutes to puff the top, like Sally’s Baking Addiction recommends, then down to 350 for the remaining 15 minutes. This time I refrigerated the crumb topping a bit. It melted AND sunk in.

I liked the muffins better themselves when they were baked at 350 so I’m forgetting about the crumb topping for now. Maybe a nice glaze made with powdered sugar and cider?

Spiced Applesauce Oatmeal Muffins

Dry ingredients

  • 3/4 cups white rice flour
  • 2 tablespoons tapioca flour
  • 3/4 cup oat flour (3/4 cups of oats processes into the same for oat flour.)
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Wet ingredients

  • 1/2 cup apple cider
  • 6 tablespoons applesauce
  • 3 tablespoons each melted butter and light olive oil
  • ½ cup overflowing maple syrup
  • 2 large eggs 
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
  2. Spray two 6 cup muffin tins with cooking spray, or grease.
  3. Whisk the wet ingredients together in another bowl. (There are a lot of wet ingredients, go with a big bowl.)
  4. Add the processed oats or oat flour and let sit for 10 minutes.
  5. Meanwhile, whisk the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.
  6. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and whisk until just combined.
  7. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 25 minutes, until a knife inserted near the center of one side of the round comes out clean.
  8. Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes.

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The Sunday Recipe: Apple Cider Doughnut Cake

September 6, 2020 at 5:54 am (Recipes)
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If you’ve read any of my recipes you might have noticed, I tend to work with what I’ve got and switch things out to avoid wheat flour and refined sugar. If you want the original recipe with sugar and wheat flour, I adapted this recipe from https://theviewfromgreatisland.com/apple-cider-doughnut-cake/#wprm-recipe-container-84520

Now, I didn’t have any oat flour on hand, nor any applesauce but I did have apples and quick oats. So, I peeled, cored and diced up a couple granny smith apples. I happened to have some plums and thought, why not? So, I cut up a plum and put that in too, with just enough water to keep things from sticking to the bottom of the little pot. I brought it to a boil then turned it down to simmer for half an hour. I processed some oats up. (1 ½ cups of oats yields approximately 1 1/2 cups of oat flour.) Then I processed the applesauce when it was done cooking and cooled in the fridge for 20 minutes.

My daughter asked if we could make another before we finished the first cake. This time we are going to glaze it instead of using the butter and sugar on top. We’ve also agreed to add ½ teaspoon of nutmeg, ¼ teaspoon of ginger, and a dash of cloves.

By the end, I was wishing I had mixed in the Kitchen Aid mixer because it’s a LOT of batter. If a Bundt pan cake seems like too much, I’ve also had good luck cutting a Bundt pan recipe in half and baking it in a glass loaf pan.

This cake is definitely best after totally cooled, and even chilled.

Apple Cider Doughnut Cake

Ingredients

Dry ingredients

  • 1 ½ cups white rice flour + ¼ cup tapioca flour
  • 1 1/2 cups oat flour (1 ½ cups of oats processes into the same for oat flour.)
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Wet ingredients

  • 1 cup apple cider
  • 3/4 cup applesauce
  • 6 tablespoons each melted butter and light olive oil
  • 1 cup + 2 tablespoons maple syrup
  • 3 large eggs 
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
  2. Grease and flour, or spray a Bundt pan with non-stick cooking spray. (Mine came out with the spray, but greasing and flouring is more reliable.)
  3. Whisk the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.
  4. Whisk the wet ingredients together in another bowl. (There are a lot of wet ingredients, go with a big bowl.)
  5. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and whisk until just combined.
  6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until a knife inserted near the center of one side of the round comes out clean. (Mine took 60 minutes.)
  7. Allow to cool in the pan for 15 minutes.
  8. Loosen the edges of the cake, I used an offset spatula. Place a plate over the cake pan then, using hot pads, turn them both over together.
  9. Brush with a couple tablespoons of melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar if desired, or glaze with a couple tablespoons of cider mixed with a cup of sifted powdered sugar.
  10. Cool thoroughly, and/or chill, and enjoy!

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The Sunday Recipe: Vanilla Applesauce

July 26, 2020 at 5:01 am (Recipes)
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applesauce

Applesauce

This past week my munchkin and I were sick with the stomach flu and I discovered I had none of the recommended B.R.A.T. diet in the house for recovery. (Yeah, you don’t want to be running out to the store with the stomach flu.)

For those who don’t remember, B is for bananas, to which I am allergic. R is for rice, but apparently only white because the bran in brown can make matters worse. A is for applesauce, which is generally eaten as whole apples in our house. And T is for toast, but again only white bread which I rarely eat because it just doesn’t like me.

So, we had apples. Luckily, I’m well acquainted with a little kitchen magic to turn them to sauce. It’s a handy trick to master. My mother taught me years ago to add a teaspoon of butter and a bit of vanilla to please the young palate. I will venture to suggest that if you don’t do dairy, a teaspoon of any neutral kitchen oil will work.

Fat content, even a tiny bit, is a major trick in many recipes to make the tastes hit your palate in a very different way. It’s why just a touch of cream in coffee can make a big difference.

So many recipes use sugar but we’ve never found it necessary. We ate a couple bowls of applesauce today and I asked my daughter if she would call it sweet or sweet-tart. She said, “sweet!” There you have it.

One of the nice things about applesauce is it’s pretty forgiving, use what you have and just enough water to keep the apples from sticking to the pot. Make a big batch or a single apple. It’s all good.

Ingredients

  • 6 medium apples (Northern Spy or Granny Smith preferred. Other tart varieties will do.)
  • Water to cover the bottom of the pot.
  • 1 teaspoon butter or neutral oil such as light olive oil
  • ¼ teaspoon of vanilla extract
  • Sprinkle of cinnamon (optional)

Directions

  1. Peel, core, and chunk up the apples into a medium pot.
  2. Add enough water to cover the bottom of the pan. Maybe 1/3 cup.
  3. Bring the water to a quick boil.
  4. Stir and cover the pot.
  5. Turn the heat to low.
  6. Simmer for 30 minutes.
  7. If the apples aren’t soft, give them a little longer.
  8. Mash the apples.
  9. Stir in the butter or oil and vanilla.
  10. Serve warm or chilled.
  11. Enjoy.

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